


The Theft of Giallarhorn

by nimblermortal



Series: Before They Were Gods [6]
Category: Norse Religion & Lore
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-07
Updated: 2014-04-07
Packaged: 2018-01-18 11:53:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1427506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nimblermortal/pseuds/nimblermortal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So the horn Heimdall blows to signal the beginning of Ragnarök and the horn Mimir uses to drink from his well have the same name. Given that everything has its own name, there must be some connection, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Theft of Giallarhorn

It came of counting the fires that were burning out.

At first Heimdall had been within the camp, among the men and tents and campfires. They were very bright; he wandered light-blind among his peers, with no one to watch for what might be watching from beyond the circumference of their glow. Before long the group he had been sharing a campsite with politely asked that, if he would not stop letting the fire burn out, he move on. Heimdall did, and kept his vision sharp and his mind away from the ice on his furs by watching the stars, which seemed clearer in the cold than the fires below them. The fires were not a very good reflection, even before they started burning out, but the pattern of their disappearances was more interesting, or at least faster, than that of the cold stars.

He knew that each dying fire symbolized some four to ten men giving up their dreams of becoming Odin’s thanes, declaring the gates of Asgard permanently shut and the game too scarce, and going home. Once he started watching, impartial, unpassionate, he couldn’t help but see.

He saw, a day or an hour before each fire went out, a figure come to meet the warriors gathered there. It was not always the same figure and it was not always received politely, but sooner or later it was greeted as a guest. While it was there, the fire burned brighter and the laughter was louder, but soon afterwards the fire went out, and its tenders went with it.

Heimdall’s gift was of observation, not of vision, so he did the only thing he could think to do and laid a fire. It was a warmer way of waiting. Eventually, a stranger stepped out of Heimdall’s fire-burned blind spot and came to meet him.

“Share my meal,” Heimdall said before his guest could say his name. He had been saving the lion’s share of his remaining rations for this purpose.

“It is good to find such hospitality in the throng,” the stranger said, as if he had ever been turned away.

“I am sorry it is not more honestly offered,” Heimdall said. “I seek an answer in return: why are you calling yourself Lopt?”

His guest looked very passably surprised and blank, though he forgot to ask where Heimdall had heard that name, which told Heimdall he had been right to sneak among the other fires eavesdropping. “What should I call myself?” he asked.

Heimdall glanced at the fire. He had been alone and cold long enough that the others mistook him for a newcomer, and left him only scraps for his fire. That suited Heimdall, as the fire did not burn very bright; but it was warmer and more solid now than it had been before his guest came.

“I do not want to speak the name here, but you are the thief from giants and the cunning As.” He braced himself for Loki’s strike but, when he looked over, Loki seemed to be delighted by his own surprise, and he laughed when he saw Heimdall’s look.

“I will not ask how you know that.”

“I watched,” Heimdall said. “My name is Heimdall, and I am boring to you, I am sure - another supplicant hoping to catch Odin’s eye - but I hope I am not boring to him.” He drew breath to declaim his worthiness, a message for Loki to bear to his master, but Loki interrupted before he could begin.

“You are not boring to me,” he said, “for you have found me out. Watchful, are you?”

“Very,” said Heimdall, and shut his mouth on his examples, since Loki seemed to value terseness.

“We could use a watchman,” Loki said, but his tone made Heimdall wonder, even as his heart jumped, whether Odin wanted a watchman at all. “I will give you a task to prove you are worthy. Go now, and say that you are weary of waiting -”

“I do not lie,” Heimdall said. Loki’s eyes flashed.

“Tiresome,” he said, which should have meant nothing, but in Loki’s mouth it cut. “Say nothing, then. Travel Yggdrasil - you know how?”

“I came here.”

“Then follow it to its base. That will not be easy. At its root-source you will find a well and an old man who guards it. At the bottom of the well there is a white stone like a star; this is Odin’s eye. Bring it to me as proof you were there, and I will arrange an audience with him.”

Heimdall nodded slowly, trying to commit his words to memory. Loki stood up, an air of business around him; since Heimdall had guessed Loki’s name, Loki had no need to tarry here. How many of those outed fires had been assigned their own task in Odin’s name? How many more might Loki send off tonight and in the following nights? Heimdall stood up suddenly and said loudly, “Take good leave, Loki Farbautisson, and son of Laufey, called Nal.”

Loki looked briefly furious as he heard the camp stir, and then the same delighted surprise flashed across his face and he clapped Heimdall on the shoulder. “Well said, son of nine sisters,” he said, quickly and quietly, not for the roused camp to hear. “Take care on your journey; I would like you to survive, that I might be your good friend. And goodnight.” 

It must have been Heimdall’s fireblindness that made Loki seem to disappear so quickly, leaving Heimdall alone in the eyes of the other warriors. He blushed and kicked ash over his fire, looking only at the sky as he gathered what he had ready for a journey. He was not willing to give up the half night’s head start he had won himself to pack a few more objects. Once his vision cleared, he was on his way.

 

He was alone again as he traveled, walking long-strided over the empty ground. It was right to move in someone’s service, knowing his strength might soon yield him a lord and a family again. The sky was as clear as the plains and the action warmed him to song, a deep healthy strain that still seemed thin and empty in its solitude. He turned several times to peer behind him, but saw no sign of pursuit, nor of anyone ahead of him, though they might have been hiding in Yggdrasil’s branches or the crooks of its bark.

Heimdall knew how to clamber about in those folds and how to find his way home, and he didn’t think it would be too hard to head ever downward, but Loki had said it would not be easy and that gave him enough pause to loosen his sword in its sheath. Half way through the motion he stopped and sat down.

If any of the warriors at Odin’s gate had said that, or Odin himself, or even Heimdall’s old friend who called their clan meetings the Smallthing, Heimdall would have simply drawn his sword or asked a friend to watch his back. But this warning came from the man who thought the best or simplest way to clear the layabouts from the door was to take a new guise every night, speak with each warrior and sleep with some of them - and still made the fires go out, and sifted the warriors until he knew which to send on quests to prove themselves. This was the man whose idea of the solution to a problem was to steal from giants, his own people if some rumors were to be believed.

Heimdall sat down and found he was hungry. He pulled up a few blades of grass and stuck them in his mouth while he waited. Sooner or later, if he waited, he would see something.

It took nine days to find the squirrel that ran from the top of the tree to its bottom and to follow it to the bottom of the tree. This was less time than Heimdall had anticipated, but he was ravenous by the end, and worse, his throat was dusty with thirst. His legs, not that he would ever admit it, ached from chasing a rodent and were bruised from the slapping of his sword against them. He took a few steps after the squirrel at the bottom of the tree, half from habit and half because he was hungry enough to eat its flesh and drink its sweet thin blood, before he remembered that Loki had said there was a well here.

If it had taken more than a few turns to find the well, Heimdall would have given up on Loki, but after the twists of Yggdrasil the well was easy to find. At its foot an old man slept unarmed, a drinking horn by his side. Or at least he must be old, for he was white from top to toe, but Heimdall had never seen anyone age like that, for all his dealings with the more mortal members of the Smallthing. He looked between the horn and the well and his tongue rasped in his mouth. He crept closer, close enough to see all the folds that were on the old man’s face and all the folds that suspiciously weren’t. He was not, Heimdall thought, aging normally for mortal, immortal, or anyone in between. He bent to shake the man awake, one hand on his sword.

He woke suddenly enough that Heimdall leaped backwards, and still only just missed the snatch of the old man’s arm. His eyes were sharp in a way that Loki’s would have been if Loki were more honest, but much less delighted with Heimdall or his own cleverness. They were not the eyes of a man gone pale with age, nor was his hand the hand of a man who waited for warriors to return home. They stood watching each other and Heimdall slowly moved his hand away from his sword lest it be taken as an invitation to do battle.

“Sir,” he said respectfully, “I have come a long way and I am very thirsty. May I borrow your horn to take a drink from this well?”

“They all want drinks,” the young-old man muttered, “and drinks are all they want. Well, it’s my well and I say what happens to it, who comes, who goes, who pays, who walks free, who bathes...”

“Yes, sir,” Heimdall interrupted. “I only want a drink.”

“A drink, eh, of course a drink. Well, the price is high.”

“If it’s the only well down here, I imagine it is,” Heimdall said. “Draw the draught. I’ll pay whatever you charge me - but mind you draw it deep.”

“You’ll pay whatever I ask?” the man said.

“Anything at all,” said Heimdall, “but mind, as I said, draw it deep.” He took a few steps back and glanced at the well. “As deep as that star that shines from the bottom.”

“I suppose I said I would sell, didn’t I, when I said the price was high. You’ll live to regret that, young man. Or - I’ll give you one chance to back out of it.”

“I’m a man of my word,” Heimdall snapped, “and I’ll not be cheated. So draw, man, or I will.” He tapped the hilt of his sword.

“Another warrior. So be it.” The old-young man moved to the side of the well and unclipped the horn from his belt. Heimdall leaned eagerly over his shoulder, watching. “Mind not a drop touches your skin.”

“Yes, yes,” Heimdall said, watching. “So deep as that star now, remember...”

The star rolled, and the lip of the horn covered it. Heimdall stepped back and waited for the man to wipe drops of water from the horn with a star-white cloth. He handed the horn to Heimdall.

“Don’t touch the horn, remember.”

“I know,” said Heimdall, and raised the horn to his lips, let water trickle into his mouth without touching his teeth.

It was a shock like a single snowflake hitting his tongue, but the snowflake was a star and the stars were knowledge, fixed and rolling in their laughter at Heimdall’s foolishness. And then the knowledge was awareness and for a moment Heimdall almost felt comfortable, for awareness was something like vision and vision he could manage, even if it was a vision a billion times stronger than his and running through time in three directions - and then the vision was life, and the life was sunlight in every vein in his body.

He swallowed. The horn was empty. Nothing rolled back to its depths and Odin’s eye was still shining at the bottom of the well.

“You tricked me!” Heimdall shouted, and was surprised at the thinness of his voice. Did he not contain multitudes?

“I’ll be taking my payment now,” said Mimir, unperturbed. “Or aren’t you a man of your word?”

For a moment, Heimdall was tempted - and then he thought of what he had seen, and how well a liar’s word had and would serve Loki. “Very well,” he said, “but I’ll not give you my eye.”

“Fair enough,” said Mimir, “I’ve got three already. I’ll have your ear.”

Heimdall nodded and, thinking carefully, switched the horn to his left hand so he could draw his sword and clumsily smite off his own ear. He gasped in pain, but his body, still fresh with the water of the well, was already weaving scar tissue like seidr over the wound. He tossed the stump of ear to Mimir.

“There you are,” he said, sword still drawn, “but you did trick me, and I am keeping the horn.”

Mimir gave a cry and leapt at him, but Heimdall slid out of the way, and then the sunlight in his bones danced a few steps farther. Heimdall brandished his sword - were there sparks trailing after it? - and watched Mimir, who must drink from this well every day, sink into a perfect fighting stance just out of his range.

He had range on Mimir, and youth, but he did not know if this golden aftertaste would help or hinder him.

“You did trick me,” he said again. “You did not give me that star, though I asked for it, and I will have proof I was here - now away with you! My right ear can hear no bargaining, and my left is gone.”

Mimir looked at him with hate in his eyes. “I am gone,” he said. “The well will find a new guardian; I have failed it twice. So come here no more, you will find no welcome - and tell your master also!”

“I will,” said Heimdall, his heart full of gladness at the thought of Odin as his master, and he left, the way up the world tree bare and gleaming before his new sight.

 

When he returned to Asgard there were fewer people in front of Odin’s hall, but he called ahead of him anyway, “My name is Heimdall, son of nine mothers, and I am returned successful. See - I have drunk from Mimir’s well, and paid my left ear for it, and my sight is that of a thousand eagles!”

The door swung open before him and he marched down the center of the hall. He walked right through the hall with everyone watching, and he would kneel before Odin, and Odin would lay a hand on his shoulder and say -

“The eye,” Loki hissed from beside him, “where is the eye?”

Heimdall missed a step. “I - did not bring it,” he said. “I brought his horn -”

“Well, what use are you without the eye!” Loki cried, and his voice escalated into a shriek that echoed through the halls. If it had been quiet before, it was silent now.

“I brought the horn,” Heimdall said quietly, no longer sure of himself, no longer walking, turned to face Loki and not Odin. “You said as proof, and it is proof...”

Loki rolled his eyes dismissively, a gesture that took up all his shoulders as well in a wide motion of dismissal. “It is not the same.”

“Loki,” said Odin, more fond than sharp, and a little amused. “Bring me the horn, Heimdall.”

Odin knew his _name_. Heimdall straightened up and, if not nearly so grandly as before, he hurried to Odin’s side and dropped to one knee to present him with the horn.

“It is a very fine horn,” Odin said. Heimdall looked up into his gently smiling face, the edges of his beard tinged well-water white. “It has been a very long time since I tasted that water, and no one else has managed since. I will look -”

“You will _not_ look!” Loki interrupted. “Or you will look with one eye, which is not the same at all - I wanted that eye to heal you, brother...”

“Loki,” said Odin; there was far more warmth in his voice when he spoke to his brother. “Be still. I do not need the eye, and you have atoned enough. Do I not have sufficient vision?”

He gestured to the hall around him, not quite finished but already more glorious than anything that existed, covered in gold and gems, rising higher than anyone before him had dreamed, larger than anyone would think of after him, and it merely the central building of the city that would be Asgard; but Loki seemed to see something different, and he subsided. Odin turned back to Heimdall.

“As I said, it is a very fine horn, and I will look forward to my discussions with my watchman,” Odin said. “Loki told me of your vision, and it can only have increased by drinking from Mimir’s well.”

Heimdall was speechless.

Loki, as ever, was not. “It is indeed a fine horn,” he said, Odin’s unprotesting vassal once more. “Give it to me, and I will take it to the hoard.”

Heimdall put a hand on the horn, then hesitated. “No,” he said.

“No? I have filled my end of the bargain. You stand here.”

“No,” Heimdall said, shaking his head. “I said I would bring the eye - or the horn, as it is now - I never said I would give it to you.”

“I opened the gate!” Loki shrieked, indignant, not nearly as piercing as before. Heimdall stood up again, hand on sword, ready to face him. Loki looked even more affronted and spread his hands; something sparked between them, and Heimdall felt a spark of fear - Loki, was Loki a seidrmadr?

Odin laughed. Both of them turned, interrupted, to face him. “By your lost honor, Loki, here is a match for you! Here,” he said, and gestured for Heimdall to offer his horn, and tipped some of his own mead into it, “drink to your success. Let all drink with me - to Heimdall’s success!”

They drank.

“To his nine days of watching, and his nine days of traveling the world tree!”

They drank.

“And that he is a match for our Loki!”

This caused rather more dissent. Loki did not drink; his eyes spat like an angry cat, slit-pupiled unless the light deceived. “Yes,” he said, “he is a match for me.”

He did not seem to be looking at the same things Heimdall saw, and he did not seem to be merely angry. For a moment, Heimdall regretted the touch of dishonesty, or the loss of an ear, or whatever it had been that had denied him the prescience Odin had won by drinking from Mimir’s well.

“We were friends before,” said Loki. “Now we are - well matched. Remember that.” He spun on the point of a single heel and left the hall. Heimdall did not think his anger, or rather his petulance, was entirely about whatever he had seen in the future.

Then Odin’s voice roared above him again, calling for everyone to toast Heimdall as a match for Loki, and thereby acknowledge Loki’s might as well. They drank, and a hand on his shoulder bade Heimdall to sit at Odin’s own feet. He looked out from there at the splendor of the half-finished hall and of all that was around them and that would surely be, and he listened to Odin tell him the name of the horn and that all he had done was greater than he had imagined, and he looked at the splendid people and thought of the centuries he would spend searching the world for threats to them, that Odin might send his forces against them.

It would be a good life. Heimdall stretched out, full and satisfied, at Odin’s feet. He spread his arms to the hall around him, arms covered with the rings of Draupnir’s dropping, and a hundred arms raised back to him, glinting with Odin’s favor. He was within now, he was chosen, he was the watchman, he was the son of nine mothers and finally, finally he was guardian of the gods.

 


End file.
